


All the World Goes around this Way

by DarknessAroundUs



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Meddling Parents, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Young Love, gladys POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23015020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessAroundUs/pseuds/DarknessAroundUs
Summary: When Forsythe Pendleton Jones the III is born, the name Elizabeth Cooper is printed in the soulmate column of his birth certificate.Elizabeth Cooper isn’t born yet. Alice Cooper doesn’t know that the child she is carrying inside her is a girl, nevermind the fact that she will be named Elizabeth. The universe on the other hand knows everything.A soulmate AU.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, FP Jones II/Gladys Jones
Comments: 72
Kudos: 282
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees, Riverdale Bingo Winter 2020





	All the World Goes around this Way

**Author's Note:**

> For the Soulmate Square of my Riverdale Bingo card. 
> 
> A huge thanks to jandjsalmon for making the best graphic for this story - it's beautiful, thoughtful, and way beyond my own graphic abilities. 
> 
> Another huge thanks is owed to KittiLee for beta-ing this and writing a line or two, or three (seriously guys, she's so good to me!). 
> 
> This ended up in Gladys's POV which was a big surprise for me, but the great thing about writing is discovering where the story takes you.

When Forsythe Pendleton Jones the III is born, the name Elizabeth Cooper is printed in the soulmate column of his birth certificate. 

Elizabeth Cooper isn’t born yet. Alice Cooper doesn’t know that the child she is carrying inside her is a girl, nevermind the fact that she will be named Elizabeth. The universe on the other hand knows everything. 

Gladys looks at the birth certificate and frowns. The only Cooper’s she knows are ones she’d prefer never to be related to, even by marriage. FP sees her concern and squeezes her shoulder in comfort.

“She’s not going to be one of those Coopers. Their daughter’s name is Polly,” FP says as if people only have one daughter. 

In the hazy pain post birth, Gladys believes him. Two years later, when she runs into Alice and Elizabeth at Pickens Park, she regrets that moment of weakness. She takes that regret out on FP later, but in the moment she smiles at Alice, all teeth, and says, “We have a problem.”

Jughead is already in one of those bucket swings, and Alice deposits Elizabeth in the one beside him, with a sigh. The babies see each other for the first time and Elizabeth laughs with glee, Jughead flings his arms wide. 

“How do you propose we solve this problem?” Alice asks, her tone scathing, as if the problem is all Gladys’s fault and not the universe’s.

“We aren’t going to tell Jughead,” Gladys says sharply.

Alice cackles with laughter for a minute. One manicured hand clutching the bar of the swingset for support. After she stops laughing, she dries her eyes with a cloth handkerchief embroidered with her initials.

“I can’t believe you saddled him with a bad name, and an even worse nickname,” Alice says sharply. 

Gladys didn’t think of it that way. The nickname suited him far more than the name ever had. That’s how it should work. It wasn’t about other people’s opinions at all. Still, she stays silent long enough for Alice to start talking again.

“Keeping his birth certificate will only work till he’s 18. Then he will legally have the right to know.”

16 years from now seems an impossibly long way off for Gladys, but she doesn’t say that out loud.

“Maybe he’ll have met someone by then. I never found out my soulmate's name because I was already in love with FP,” Gladys says. It’s not a decision she’s sure she’d make again, but it’s too late to go back after all this time. It’s not like knowing the name now will change anything.

Alice’s expression looks pinched and uncomfortable for a second and then softens. In her swing Betty squeals with delight. 

“It’s worth trying,” Alice says with a nod. “There’s no way my Elizabeth would end up with a Jug-head.” 

Gladys refrains from swearing. 

Alice leaves with Elizabeth tucked into a stroller that probably costs as much as the trailer’s annual maintenance budget. 

A week later they run into each other again and even though they try to stick to opposite ends of the playground, Jughead keeps running towards Elizabeth, even though there are lots of other children in the park.

Gladys gives up and sits on a bench next to Alice, and they make a schedule on their phones of which parks they can visit when, as their children embrace in a sandpit. They exchange numbers just in case the schedule has to change for any reason.

The schedule ends up working so well that the next time Elizabeth and Jughead see each other they’re both in Kindergarten. 

On the first day of school they hold hands and are reluctant to leave the classroom at the end of the day, the teacher tugging them out to their parents with the promise of stickers. 

Hal and FP are the parents manning pick up that day, and they both silently agree not to tell their wives, as they separate their tearful kids from each other.

Naturally their wives find out the very next day when they’re on pick up duty. For the first time in their lives Gladys and Alice agree on something - they are both pissed at their husbands.

That night after much yelling, FP tells Glady’s that this will pass. Sure the kids seem to like each other now, and Jughead wouldn’t stop saying the name Betty at dinner, but it will pass. Soulmates don’t need to spend all their time around each other. This was just a stage like dinosaurs or only eating hamburgers.

Gladys thought FP was full of shit, but she didn’t say it with words. Instead she turned off the lights.

By Thanksgiving it is clear that this isn’t a stage, with Elizabeth insisting that everyone call her Betty, Jughead’s nickname for her, and Jughead spending all evening drawing pictures of Betty, so Gladys gives Alice a call and they meet up at a café, while their kids are in school, and come up with a plan.

It is a simple plan, but the amount of money involved is not to be scoffed at. Alice pays Gladys 30,000 dollars to leave town, to start a new life preferably somewhere far away. 

FP is furious, but Gladys makes it clear, she is leaving with or without him.

It ends up being with him and a belligerent, bawling, Jughead.

“How can you hate a child this much?” FP asks when they stop for gas. Refilling the tank gave them a brief reprieve from the screaming, even though it was so cold Gladys could see her breath in front of her. 

Gladys doesn’t hate Betty, she hates where she came from. Alice might have paid Gladys 30,000 dollars but as far as Gladys is concerned it barely scratched the surface of the debt. Gladys still remembers prying Alice off FP underneath the high school bleachers, FP’s lips stained magenta from Alice. 

Hal was just as bad with his feigned indifference to the whole situation and his sweater vests. 

“I don’t hate Betty. She’s just not right for Jughead,” Gladys doesn’t make eye contact when she says it.

“The universe feels differently,” FP says smugly and Gladys resists the urge to spit in his face. The car is uncomfortable enough with one screaming boy in it. She’s not prepared for two.

Ohio’s a good change of pace for Gladys. She gets a job and the money Alice gave them means that they can afford a nicer place to live than a trailer, a home that doesn’t move. FP’s happy too in his own way, he’s still drinking too much, running deals on the side, but not shouting or throwing bottles. 

Gladys can’t judge too harshly. She’s running deals on the side too. 

Only Jughead’s unhappy. Since the move he’s become sullen, like a teenager trapped in a five year old’s body. 

By the summer Jughead seems to get over the worst of it. He’s still frowning more than half the time, but he’s befriended Dilton Doiley, the son of survivalists. Dilton always seems a little sinister to Gladys, but she pretends to like him. 

Gladys doesn’t really think about Betty or Alice, even Riverdale as a whole has managed to mostly be forgotten.

But then the summer before Jughead turns twelve, FP’s oldest friend Fred, one of the rare individuals born without a soulmate, decides to re-marry. 

Of course the whole Jones family has to go to the wedding. The Coopers were invited but RSVP’d as not attending according to Fred. Gladys is sure that’s Alice’s doing and she’s silently grateful.

By now even Gladys knows that Fred’s son Archie is Betty’s new best friend. Fred can barely shut up about her. He swears that Betty’s the only reason his son passed elementary school. 

The wedding is cliched and overly floral for Gladys’s taste, but the ceremony is outdoors and the weather is fine, so she can’t complain that much.

Archie and Jughead get along so well that Glady’s decides to allow the sleepover they beg her for.

In the morning, when she arrives to pick Jughead up and his arm is around Betty’s shoulders, she regrets that moment of weakness. But it’s too late, they’ve exchanged email addresses already. 

Suddenly Jughead’s all about computer time and he’s always borrowing his dad’s beat up laptop. His fingers tapping out words at a surprising speed. 

Gladys checks in occasionally but none of the emails seem like love letters, just daily and twice daily life updates from one bored and angsty pre-teen to another. 

They talk about books a lot, and how much they want to solve the mystery of the move, whatever that means. In any case it’s something Glady’s stops really paying attention to after a while. 

When Glady’s gives Jughead a cellphone for his thirteenth birthday she doesn’t mention Betty at all, she assumes that somewhere along the way they’ve fallen out of touch. A month later, it’s very clear that is not the case when Gladys gets a call from a screaming Alice. 

Betty’s gone over her texting limits and her calling limits, all to one number, Jughead’s of course. 

Gladys finds it hard to breathe for a moment. They’ve done so much to prevent this future, to delay it, and still Alice and Gladys have ended up being bested by (2) thirteen year-olds. Gladys’s is woman enough to admit that.

Alice does not feel the same way.

“I’m going to talk Betty out of this,” Alice says, her words slurring slightly. Gladys can practically picture the white wine glass she’s clutching. Gladys pours herself three shots of tequila just to catch up. 

“I don’t know if I can talk Jughead out of anything,” Gladys offers up honestly. He’s her son, but he’s also a separate person. Last night she couldn’t get him to clean up after his muddy boots, so she hardly thinks that today she’ll be able to talk him out of pursuing his soulmate. 

“Right now, they don’t know who they really are to each other.” Alice slurs on the other end of the line. “Once they see those birth certificates there's no going back.”

Gladys feels that familiar tug at her gut, that reminder that she doesn’t know if FP’s on hers. Would knowing one way or another change things for them? The realist in Gladys thinks probably. 

“OK,” Gladys answers. She takes three more shots before confronting her son. 

It’s clear from the moment that she slams open Jughead’s bedroom door, that he already knows that Betty’s been caught. His eyes are wide and shifty, looking at Gladys, then his phone, then her again. 

“Why have you been talking to Betty?” Gladys asks, feeling a little unsteady on her feet.

“Why do you care?” Jughead snarks back, eyes rolling just like his fathers. 

“Because she’s the daughter of a manipulative bitch.” Gladys doesn’t regret saying that outloud, but she’s regretting the sixth shot. She sits down on the edge of Jughead’s bed to steady herself.

“It’s not like that’s news to anyone.”

Gladys laughs. Sometimes she can see herself in her son so clearly.

“She’s so far away, you’ve barely spent time with her. Your life is here.”

“What life?” Jughead says with a shrug, and Gladys realizes for the first time that she hasn’t seen Dilton in over six months. 

“School. Who knows you might meet your soulmate there.” That might be taking it a step too far, but it’s too late to take the sentence back.

“I already met my soulmate. I already saw my birth certificate, so it’s too late to pretend otherwise.” 

“How could you have seen it? I keep it locked up!”

“In a combination safe where my birthdate is the key, mom,” Jughead says, rolling his eyes. In retrospect it’s clear to Gladys that was a dumb move, she feels like screaming but instead she flops back on Jughead’s bed and stares at his ceiling. 

The renter’s before them stuck glow in the dark stars there, and no one ever bothered to take them off. The lights are on, so they aren’t glowing but their edges are visible.

“Why did we move here?” Jughead asks and after Gladys is silent for a minute he adds, “Was it because of Betty?”

Gladys thinks the stars might be moving now, or the ceiling, she’s not sure which. “Alice paid me to move.”

“That bitch,” Jughead says, and Gladys is grateful they agree on something. 

There’s a moment of silence that starts out comfortable but becomes awkward when Jughead’s fingers start twitching against the wall. Gladys is about to tell him to stop doing that when Jughead’s fingers still, and he says, “Alice thinks I’m not good enough for Betty. Is that true?”

Gladys feels terrible about conspiring with that woman. All those years ago it hadn’t seemed like a big deal to keep their kids separated till they came of age, but now she had her son doubting his own self-worth, because of some stupid high school rivalry. One that Gladys had effectively won at the time, for better or for worse.

Gladys sits up, looks Jughead straight in the eyes and says, ”Alice couldn’t be more wrong.”

The look on Jughead’s face, the way he exhales, and color returns to his cheeks, help Gladys feel a little better.

Jughead sits down beside her, and she throws an arm around him, a sincere half hug.

“Can we move back to Riverdale then?” Jughead asks, his head pressed against her shoulder.

That’s something Gladys can’t imagine. Her whole life is here, as boring as it is, they have money and stability in a way they never have before. Riverdale feels like a whole separate timeline, a past that’s mostly shitty. 

“Why?” Gladys asks.

“Because I feel like I can’t breathe without Betty.”

Gladys doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but choosing sounds too taxing, so she just lays there. She knows for certain now FP’s not her soulmate. That whoever her soulmate is she’s never met them. There’s never been anyone she can’t breathe without. She feels sad and then she passes out. 

When she wakes up Jughead’s hand is resting on her stomach and he’s curled into her side. His breathing is steady and slow. She feels like they have to move back but she hopes that’s the hangover talking. 

It’s not. Three weeks later they’re jammed into a moving van and headed for a new, nicer trailer by the river. 

Alice is spitting mad and waiting by the Welcome to Riverdale sign.

“We were in this together!” she shouts at Gladys after they pull over to the side of the road.

“We never should have been,” Gladys says and walks back to the car. 

It’s not like she never regrets moving back to Riverdale. She gets a crappy job at Pop’s that seems to eat up all her time & energy. FP goes through a string of bad jobs that almost cause them to lose the trailer. Their fights have almost become an art form at this point. Then almost to add insult to injury, their son is sickeningly happy. Gladys catches Jughead and Betty kissing in every room of the trailer and even in the bathroom at Pop’s.

She remembers how it felt to be young and in love, but this seems different, like invisible strings are pulling Jughead and Betty together, like their bodies can’t bear to be apart anymore. 

When they sit in a booth they try to be on the same side, shoulders touching. Jughead’s always been a talker, after he saw Pulp Fiction the first time he would not shut up, but at home he was always talking about movies and books, ideas not people, not feelings. When he’s with Betty, Glady’s overhears him talking about how FP’s drinking really makes him feel, and the wrongs he’s going to right with his great American novel. 

Gladys regrets the moving boxes she packed and the miles she drove to separate them in the first place. But at least she drove back.

When Alice comes up with every internship underneath the sun for Betty to apply to, Gladys has the good sense to call up these businesses, and with her best Alice Cooper impersonation withdraws Betty’s applications.

When Alice cuts Betty off financially, but draws the line at kicking her out, Betty start’s working at Pop’s by Gladys’s side, eventually shifting to kitchen duty. Jughead’s always complimenting her on how she smells when she’s splattered in grease. Betty’s always sneaking him hamburgers. 

They get into the same college, skip the dorms, for a small one bedroom, and every Christmas and summer holiday, they return to Riverdale, always staying with Gladys and FP. 

Each time they return, Betty seems a little more confident, a little more herself. In her posture, in her smile, in the way her hands start to move when she talks, in the piercing’s she accumulates in her ear’s and then her nose.

When they return for winter break during their senior year of college, Gladys spots a sparrow on the back of Betty’s neck, but she says nothing. She also manages to keep her mouth closed when a day later she walks in on Jughead kissing it. Their tenderness is so palpable even when they aren’t touching, yet still Glady’s feels strange witnessing these moments not meant for her. 

Years later when, Jughead marries Betty under a willow in the park they first played together as toddlers. Gladys has to admit, that the universe is right about some things, and she’s so glad that her son gets to benefit from that blessing, in a way she didn’t allow herself to.

**Author's Note:**

> I am always so grateful for comments and feedback!


End file.
